A rendering depicts what Richard and Svetlana Dreyfuss' renovated home will look like. (Courtesy of Deep Blue Prints)

Richard Dreyfuss (far right, facing camera) toured the back patio area of his home in Olivenhain with architects, representatives of SDG&amp;E and others involved in the project. (Charlie Neuman / Union-Tribune)

Richard Dreyfuss (far right, facing camera) toured the back patio area of his home in Olivenhain with architects, representatives of SDG&E and others involved in the project. (Charlie Neuman / Union-Tribune)

ENCINITAS 
Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss has a new role: land baron.

As a longtime city dweller, Dreyfuss said owning a home on 1.2 acres in Encinitas makes him feel “like a combination of Jed Clampett and Ariel Sharon.”

Dreyfuss and his wife of three years, Svetlana, bought the 4,830-square-foot house last year, knowing it would require major work. They are now preparing to renovate the 1970s structure with state-of-the-art technologies to save energy and water.

San Diego Gas & Electric has chosen the innovative renovation project as one of three case studies so far for its countywide Advanced Home program.

With mud-colored shag carpeting, nondescript shingled roof and a too-small swimming pool partially full of green muck, it hardly qualifies as a dream house.

The Dreyfusses plan to strip it down to its studs and beams, then build it up with technology, such as computer-monitored solar panels and foil insulation, in the hope of generating its energy on site and minimizing water use.

“We had two goals: Get off the grid as soon as possible, and make of the home what the home itself wanted to be,” Richard Dreyfuss, 61, said in a recent interview.

“The house as we bought it was in a state of no state. It's like a piece of clay that you can make something of.”

Cutting the electric bill to zero won't be easy for a home that will include a new guesthouse, a trellis of grapevines and a Jacuzzi the size of a swimming pool with heated waterfalls.

There will be a two-story library for Dreyfuss'15,000-volume book collection, with a hidden panel leading to a secret room. The renovation also will add a master bedroom and bath, and private offices, making it a total of 6,000 square feet.

'It's like a science lab'

Dreyfuss is working with the San Diego firm S.K.I.N., which specializes in sustainable design. The company, co-owned by Deniece Duscheone and Christopher Maresca, won awards for its $52 million renovation of the US Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego, a luxurious yet energy-efficient project that Dreyfuss admires.

“It's really fun to take a residential project and do a conversion,” Duscheone said. “It's like a science lab.”

She is trying to keep the cost under $1 million.

Under a permit application submitted to Encinitas in December, the improvements will include solar panels on the roof and trellises. The house will be cocooned in a thin layer of reflective foil insulation, and will harness geothermal energy from underground.

When it rains, two water wheels will produce energy from runoff flowing into an underground cistern, where it will be stored for irrigation. Landscaping will include low-water plants and synthetic turf.

'I am a citizen'

Dreyfuss isn't one of those celebrities known for environmental activism and he doesn't drive a Toyota Prius – he has a Honda Accord and is eyeing a $20,000 Austin Mini-Cooper – but he likes the idea of achieving “net zero” energy consumption and is concerned about U.S. reliance on foreign oil.